It's the End of the World (At Least At The Movies)

Why on earth do we keep putting ourselves through this?

Alissa Wilkinson| June 26, 2013

Image:
Jaap Buitendijk / Paramount Pictures

On April 15, the Boston Marathon was rocked by bombings that left three dead and 264 injured. Three days later, in West, Texas, a fertilizer plant exploded, killing fifteen people. The months before were filled with reports of mass, public shootings—including the Sandy Hook Elementary School tragedy—so numerous it's difficult, six months later, to even recall them all. And don't forget all the natural disasters and forest fires and global political unrest.

In the middle of that difficult week in April, the parody news site The Onion ran a series of articles with titles like "BREAKING: How's Everyone Doing?", "Authorities: Sadly, There Are Many People Who Could Have Done This," and "Jesus, This Week." But the most revealing and accurate pulse on everyone's nervousness was in a purportedly farcical Onion article titled "This What World Like Now," accompanied by a picture of the Boston bombings:

According to a majority of Americans, they have mostly come to terms with the fact that they now live in a world where, when an explosion happens, they immediately suspect it's the result of domestic or foreign terrorism and are fully aware that hoping people died because of an accidental gas leak is morbidly wishful thinking. The U.S. populace also said that seeing the photo of a vacant-eyed suspect appear on their computer screen or watching a recorded message made by someone halfway around the world hours or days after an attack no longer shocks them.
In fact, sources confirmed, the nation fully expects it.
What reportedly frustrates and angers them most, every citizen in America said, is accepting that there is absolutely nothing they can do to ...

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